


A Helper..?

by CreativePoptart



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, How Do I Tag, Neighbors, Other, References to Depression, This Is STUPID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 17:47:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17492396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CreativePoptart/pseuds/CreativePoptart
Summary: Reader is not able to see the good in life anymore, but could a new neighbor change their perspective?





	A Helper..?

**Author's Note:**

> This story is just a little drabble that I wrote because I thought of the little blurb at the top and wanted to base a small story off of it. I do not expect this to be great, but here it is.

** A Helper: **

_Do the dead envy the living, simply because they are alive?_

_Better yet…_

_Should the living envy the dead because they are no longer alive?_

 

You were tired, most simply put. It was more than that, though, not just being tired. You were exhausted and ready for the sweet embrace of death to grab you and lull you to eternal sleep. All of the things you wanted to do had long since stopped becoming interesting to you. Hobbies were abandoned and felt empty.

Your job was a job, and it kept you from completely starving to death, and for that you were ever so slightly grateful. It wasn’t that you enjoyed it, per se, but starving wasn’t an attractive option at the moment. The job had stopped making you feel anything awhile back. Some number of weeks or months ago, you couldn’t really recall anymore, any feeling you’d had for the job disappeared. You used to hate it, but now it was just nothing.

Nothing.

_Nothing._

That was it.

You were empty, and nothingness clawed at your insides, tearing you into tiny shreds, piece by piece. Even trying new things seemed to be meaningless, and felt hollow, almost as hollow as you did. Even as you sat in your tiny gray apartment, looking at things that used to be meaningful, you couldn’t bring back any of that emotion or anything. It was all just _empty_.

As you went through your day, it all felt like a routine, something out of a poorly written script of a play or something. The nothingness greeted you in the morning, sat with you at breakfast, glared you down at work, taunted you at dinner, and suffocated you at night. Nothing changed, nothing made a difference, nothing helped. It was rote, a never-ending loop of day after day.

You had tried other things, sure. Therapy was disinteresting, exercise just made you even more tired, and things you used to love made you frustrated. Everything was bland and tasteless, like a bowl of plain oatmeal that had been cooked for too long. Insubstantial and mushy. But then…

Something changed.

Not in you, but in your city. Monsters, who had been all the rage in the past year or so, were beginning to move into the city and take up residence. They were freed from the place called the Underground and had just now begun to branch out of their first city, a year after freedom. It was different, interesting really, but you couldn’t take up too much interest. It’d faze out eventually.

As you stepped out of your apartment one morning, sometime in late September, you could hear clattering and banging in the apartment adjacent to yours. That section had been empty for a few weeks, the previous tenants having been utter slobs. The new neighbors must have just moved in earlier that day, or maybe even earlier.

_It doesn’t really matter anyway, I’m not going to talk to them if I don’t have to. New or not, they’ll just end up being like all the rest. Falsely polite, then disinteresting, then rude. No thanks._

You shuffled down the hallway, trying to keep up enough mental energy to get to your job when the door to that apartment was flung open with a bang, startling you. A loud voice boomed down the hallway, and you were certain that your other neighbors were going to have complaints. A sigh fell from your lips and you turned to leave again.

“WAIT!!! Human wait!!” _Human...?_

You turned back to see a rather tall skeleton appear in the doorway, holding what appeared to be a small container of some sort. It was rather tall, almost too tall to be standing up straight in the hallway, wearing what appeared to be a white colored top and bright blue shorts, and a bright red scarf, boots, and gloves. It came bounding over to you with a large smile on its face, though you were sure it was smiling all the time. Upon its approach, you realized how much the skeleton dwarfed you, making you look like a child, comparatively.

“Hello Human!” it said, the voice just as loud as before. “I, the Great Papyrus, am your new neighbor! I was hoping that I could catch you before you left from your apartment, and I did! Nyeh heh heh!” He posed like a superhero, beaming down at you while you just blinked at him. He held out the container to you, and reluctantly you accepted it, before he spoke again.

“I came to bring you some welcoming spaghetti, because I heard that humans often exchange food or gifts to new neighbors upon their arrival! I will allow for you to resume whatever you were doing previously, but please do come and visit my brother and I at some point! Good-bye!!”

Just like that, the skeleton was gone, back inside his apartment and slamming the door shut after him. You stood there for a moment, trying to process what had just happened. A living skeleton gave you spaghetti because he had moved in to the apartment next to yours.

_Weird._

You shrugged off the matter for the moment and headed off to work for the day, but your mind lingered on the strange encounter from the morning. Regardless, you were able to make it through the day with the same monotony as usual and returned home more exhausted than before. You wanted nothing more than to simply flop down in bed and not wake up ever again, which would be ideal, but you would settle for not waking up for a good three hours or so.

As you passed the skeleton’s door, you could hear muffled talking at a loud volume, but you ignored it. Neighbors had been loud before, they could be loud again, and you would tune it out either way. Meaningless, all of it. When you went to open your door, there was another loud bang of the door beside you, and the tall skeleton from before poked his head out again.

“Hello Human!” he called, waving at you joyously. “I was hoping that you would come home soon! Did you enjoy the spaghetti I gave you earlier today?” You waved back at him. In all honesty, you hadn’t felt like eating all day, from breakfast up until now, so the spaghetti had gone into the break room fridge for a later time. The hopeful look that the skeleton was giving you now though, made you want to tell him that it was good, regardless of whether you had eaten it or not.

“Um,” you said, your voice a little rough from disuse in the past few days. “I, uh, thought it was pretty good, smelled great too.” That part wasn’t a lie, as it had smelled rather enticing, but you just weren’t up for eating anything. The skeleton’s expression lit up with delight, and he stepped out of the doorway over to you, once again reminding you how short you were next to him.

“Most excellent!” he cried and stuck out a hand in your face, presumably to shake. “I do not believe that we were properly introduced in the earlier hours of the morning, I am the Great Papyrus! And you are…?” You reluctantly took his hand, feeling the fabric of the glove under your fingers. It was smooth and soft, not entirely unpleasant, but you could feel the bones in his hand underneath the material.

“I’m (Y/n),” you said, making the skeleton beam at you even more.

“Well, (Y/n),” Papyrus said, shaking your hand a few times before releasing it and placing both of his own on his pelvic bones. “I insist that you come over to dinner this evening with my brother and I! I will be making something delicious, and as your new neighbor, I find it would be un-neighborly if I did not have you over in my apartment for a meal at least once!”

You struggled to find something to say in order to counter his offer. It wasn’t that you were scared of Papyrus, or that you hated him, but you didn’t want to step into someone else’s home. The nothingness was already clawing at your throat, and you wanted nothing more than for it to consume you right now. The look on Papyrus’ face, however, told you he really wanted you to come over to his apartment.

“Can I get a few minutes to put my things away?” you asked, and Papyrus was quick to agree, shooing you into your apartment. Quickly, you began to put your stuff into its appropriate places, wondering how this skeleton was able to be so expressive and convincing all at the same time. He was able to get you to take food on his first day here, and now you were going to eat dinner with him and his brother.

_This is too much to take, I need to sit down and take a few minutes to breathe._

Before you could even sit down, a knock, heavy and loud, came pounding on your door, and you let out a yelp of fright. Papyrus’ voice wafted through the door and asked if you were ready to go, and you hastily made your way to the door. Once it was open, he stood before you, a smile on his face, and he led you back over to his apartment again.

Dinner was… different. Normally you would be eating in solitude, not able to think about anything for a few minutes, but at Papyrus’ apartment, there was some yelling and excitement. His brother, Sans you found out, was making puns left and right, which seemed to agitate his brother greatly. You were unfortunately caught in the middle, but the dinner didn’t feel awkward at all. Not that you felt much nowadays.

However, at the end of the evening, Papyrus and Sans had bid you farewell and sent you home with more leftovers for you to consume later. It was a nice gesture, but you hoped that you were able to just get ready for tomorrow. Papyrus, however, had other plans, pounding on your door only a few minutes after you had settled back into your apartment.

“Human! Er, I mean, (Y/n)!” he said after you opened the door. “I was noticing that you might be lonely over here by yourself, and I would like to propose something to you!” You raised an eyebrow.

“What would that be?” you asked, leaning casually against your doorframe. Papyrus smiled and took up his superhero pose that he had done earlier that morning.

“We would like you to come to dinner every evening! Perhaps then we can be more than neighbors, but friends as well! And you won’t be as lonely as you are now!” You blinked at him slowly, but his grin didn’t falter.

_How did this guy get that vibe off me after only knowing me for less than 24 hours? He can’t be that good at reading people, and even if he was, there is no way that he would be able to pinpoint what is wrong with me. I don’t like this, I want to go to sleep and forget about it altogether. He does need an answer though, and dinner tonight was… nice._

“Wouldn’t that be awful rough on the two of you?” you asked, your voice sounding uncertain, even to your own ears. “I’d hate to be a burden to you and your brother, and it seemed like he didn’t really want me there to begin with. And I wouldn’t want to put you two out in terms of food, because it’s expensive.” Papyrus looked shocked, but then placed his hands on both of your shoulders, the warmth coming from them surprising you.

“It would be an honor to have you as a guest in our house, not a burden!” His hands came off your shoulders and he took up a thoughtful pose, scratching at his mandible like it was a chin of some sort. “Although I can understand that you would be overwhelmed by my greatness, and perhaps may be intimidated. AHA! What if we were only to have you over once or twice a week?”

That was even harder to counter, and you found yourself agreeing to a weekly dinner with the two brothers. Papyrus laughed with joy and said good night for the present, disappearing into his apartment. Your chest hurt a little from the encounter, but now you barely felt the nothingness from before. It was still there, but now it was much less noticeable, at least for now.

A small smile tugged itself on your lips, the feeling almost foreign to your face now, but a welcome feeling, nonetheless. You turned back into your apartment and began to get ready for work in the morning. For once, you dreaded facing tomorrow a little bit less, and you didn’t want to be swallowed by nothingness quite so much. Papyrus would be waiting for you, and you looked forward to it.

The world seemed to hold a little more color and meaning for a moment, even if just a little.

 

_Do the dead envy the living, simply because they are alive?_

_Better yet…_

_~~Should the living envy the dead because they are no longer alive?~~ _

_No._

_Not if they have someone who is a helper._

**Author's Note:**

> My first actual fic posted to AO3! I hope you enjoyed it, for as short and not so great as it is. I really just thought up the little bit at the top and wondered if I could write a small story based off of it. I wanted to make this, and have made absolutely no edits or anything. I'll fix stuff if I can later!


End file.
